Bachmann: Obama Bringing On the End Times

Michele Bachmann went on Jan Markell’s radio show, which focuses on end times prophecies, and declared that President Obama is bringing on the end times by supporting Al Qaeda (which is a lie). And unlike most people who say this, she agrees people should be happy about this:

“President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition,” Bachmann said. “Your listeners, US taxpayers, are now paying to give arms to terrorists including Al Qaeda.”

Bachmann said that the Al Qaeda funding (which isn’t happening) is a sign of the End Times: “This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists, now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history.”

“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha Come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand,” Bachmann continued. “When we see up is down and right is called wrong, when this is happening, we were told this; these days would be as the days of Noah.”

So if you’re supposed to rejoice that Obama is bringing Jesus back (kinda like Justin Timberlake bringing sexy back), why does she so steadfastly oppose him? Isn’t that opposing the will of God and trying to prevent the second coming of Christ?

So when Reagan gave arms and money to Afghan warlords, terrorists, and the people who would eventually form groups like Al-Queda, he became a conservative icon who loved America and did The Lord’s Work. If Obama does the same thing (even though he’s not), he’s aiding and abetting terrorists and bringing about the End Of The World.

Makes snese to me.

cjcolucci

Jesus Himself preached that the end times were at hand, and that some people hearing his words would live to see them. Unless Mel Brooks’ 2000-plus-year-old man is real, and not merely a comic construct, He was wrong. Not a generation has passed without some prominent Christian crackpot making a similar prediction.

Maybe it’s time to get into the Rapture pet-sitting business?

Chaos Engineer

This is pretty standard thinking among the End Times crowd.

You’re allowed to be happy about the evil deeds that herald the approach of the End Times, because all the “good guys” will be raptured and the people who are left will finally get the punishment they deserve. But you’re not allowed to commit the evil deeds yourself, you have to sort of stand on the sidelines and say “Tsk! Tsk! Are you sure you want to do that?”

About this bit:

“This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists,

This is a reminder that we could have had the End Times back in the 1980’s during Iran-Contra, but apparently somebody screwed something up. Probably people weren’t saying “Tsk! Tsk!” loud enough, and God postponed the Rapture to teach them a lesson.

dugglebogey

“The leaf is on the fig tree?”

Is that some kind of fundie code? “The eagle has landed.” “The goalie is out of the net.”

John Pieret

“The leaf is on the fig tree?”

I think that means everyones’ naughty bits are hanging out.

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

But, Ed Brayton, how will we kill Al Qaeda when they’re wearing what Barack Hussein Obama gave them, and they’re immune to weapons we don’t have?*

…Maranatha Come Lord Jesus…

I ran a Maranatha once. Longest 26 miles of my life. And when I looked behind me there were two sets of footprints the entire way. Jerk. He drank all my water, too.

* We don’t use chemical weapons, except white phosphorus shells, which aren’t chemical weapons. Because we use them. And anyway a bunny suit and gas mask probably isn’t much protection against being hit by 155mm shells, then being on fire.

rabbitscribe

“The leaf is on the fig tree?”

Is that some kind of fundie code? “The eagle has landed.” “The goalie is out of the net.”

Closely paraphrasing Richard Dawkins: “You may not know what “The leaf is on the fig tree” means in this context. Don’t worry about it- you have better things to do.

busterggi

I still say all fundies are wannabe suicide bombers.

jnorris

We keeping these signs of the End Times but no actual End Times. I want all the True Christian End Timers ™ to met and decide once and for all what the End Times signs really are AND when it will happen. Until then rent circus tents and charge money for people to point and laugh at you.

raven

Bachmann got one thing right.

It is the End Times. For her anyway.

She is under investigation for violating campaign laws. Her fellow Theothuglicans are sick of her. Everyone else is laughing at her. And she isn’t going to run again.

she agrees people should be happy about this:

Not really.

She is more useful to the Democrats and atheists than useful to anyone else. By making the GOP look silly and crazy. For atheists, she is the posterperson for Fundie Xian Induced Cognitive Impairment, a well known clinical entity. We could call it…Bachmann’s Syndrome or Bachmann’s Disease.

… Obama is bringing on the end times by supporting Al Qaeda (which is a lie).

Cite needed – not about the ET part, but evidence that the US has not supplied AQ-linked Syrian contras.

Of course, answering that definitively seems nearly impossible: never mind the crude oil & dates, Syria’s # 1 export these days is disinformation.

Friendly

The “fig tree” comment is a reference to the parallel passages of Matthew 24:32-33 and Mark 13:28-29, both of which say (more or less), “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door.”. Mark 13:30 goes on to say, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” Since Hal Lindsey, the “fig tree budding” has been associated in fundie circles with the founding of the modern state of Israel, which was supposed to mean that Jesus was coming back during the generation that was alive then (in the 1970s, or 1980s, or 1990s, or any day now, really, just have faith). I suspect that the fundie eschatologists won’t decide that the, um, bloom is off that particular fig until the very last person who was alive on or before May 14, 1948, kicks the bucket.

exdrone

If all the Tea Partiers are raptured and we end up remaining here without them, then we will both have found our paradises.

http://www.facebook.com/dave.maier.79 Dave Maier

as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists

Remind me why this is not actionable slander. Is it because Congresspersons can’t be prosecuted?

John Pieret

Dave Maier @ 15:

Remind me why this is not actionable slander. Is it because Congresspersons can’t be prosecuted?

More like the President is a public figure and to win a defamation case he’d have to prove that it was published with with actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth). She’d have the defense that she is so stupid that she didn’t have knowledge of either falsity or truth.

(More correctly, it would be politically … uncomfortable … for Obama to actually sue her and her lunacy is probably an overall plus for Obama anyway.)

timberwoof

There’s always the Barba Streisand Effect to be avoided.

This business about being mad at people who immanentize the eschaton is as nonsensical as Christians being mad at Judas for betraying Jesus. Had Judas not done that, the sacrifice could not have happened and the religion would have been founded in some other way … but nobody ever talks about that. It takes a certain Christian kind of cognitive dissonance to think, “Damn that dammnable Obama for bringing an end to the world as part of God’s glorious plan to bring all us good people into heaven so we can be with Baby Jesus!”

jakc

Now, now Friendly: the failure of a prophecy to come true won’t shake the faith of fundamentalists. They will simply recalculate.

Ethan Myerson

“this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history.”

This sort of depraved escapist stupidity has been poisoning the evangelical Christian “community” for most of US history. I remember when my junior-high-school math and science teacher got born a second time, and went from being a smart, decent guy to being an uncaring Christurbating idiot exulting in the coming apocalypse with a smile on his face that I found kinda repulsive. He seemed to think it really important to tell me that all I had to do to go to Heaven was get “Saved” by Jesus; learning and following his actual teachings (and giving a shit about anyone else’s welfare) was optional and very low on their priority list. He and his blank co-religionists in their blank basement church (who followed the “lead” of some other loon named Watchman Nee) were following Hal Lindsey’s predictions in “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which set the date of the Second Coming around 2000. Not sure how he handled the failure of that prediction, since thay all packed off to Anaheim to build another church or something and I never bothered to stay in touch with them.

The fact that the Republicans are now bringing this full-blown irresponsible escapism into a national government, really says a lot about their “values.”

eric

More like the President is a public figure and to win a defamation case he’d have to prove that it was published with with actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth). She’d have the defense that she is so stupid that she didn’t have knowledge of either falsity or truth.

You’re right about the stupidity defense. However, in principle it seem to me that it would be easier to show defamation in such cases because political demagoguery is pretty explicitly understood to have the purpose of reducing the opponent’s reputation in the minds of the audience. The “malice” component is effectively built in to all political speech (not just Bachman’s). In practice, however, that may not matter. The public figure issue for one reason; the other is that it is typically impossible to show that someone knowingly lied unless they left notes or emails lying around to that effect.

lpetrich

Isn’t she aware of the extremely bad track record of “End Times” predictions? What makes her think that she got it right when previous predictors didn’t?

More generally, how do End-Times believers react when anyone points out that abysmal track record?